For baby Nord’s gender reveal, my sweet friends Liz, Maria, and Nicki threw me a special gender reveal party at Maria’s home in northwest Chicago. A ll of these photos are courtesy of them and if you aren’t following them already – DO! I have some insanely talented friends! 🙂 Several of my family members drove up from Tennessee and Cincinnati for the reveal including my mom, dad, brother, and 2 sister-in-loves. I even had some of my Chicago friends and extended family members join! I feel so lucky to have had so many of them there (especially since we’re Chicago transplants) and for those that couldn’t attend, they were Facetimed in. That in itself was quite the picture 🙂

Liz, Maria, and Nicki made sure that all my favorite foods were at the event: sour candy, Mandy B’s cupcakes, and tacos. What more could a pregnant girl want?? They also asked two other local businesses to join in on the fun! The fireplace decorated with gold “oh baby” balloon letters, palm leaves, and multicolored balloons was designed by my friend Ozzie at Gromeza Floral Design Studio. He did such a great job!! The big balloon that we popped to reveal the gender was done by my friends at Paris312.

As soon as Vince and I found out that I was pregnant, we both immediately said “I think it’s a girl.” However, over the past few months we started to doubt our initial gut instinct. To our surprise, we ARE expecting a girl (this is why I never did well on tests in school LOL) and we could not be more excited! Bring on the bows and the dresses!! Now to decorate the nursery! 🙂